The result from Saturday’s friendly in the US has largely been forgotten in the wake of the Bale – Adam row and on the face of it, a 0-0 draw gave us few pointers towards the start of the season.
Spurs continued to soldier on with Harry Kane as a lone striker and aside from the centre forward position, you still feel that there will be more changes in personnel before the new campaign begins. Olympic absentees also hinder Tottenham’s options on tour but Andre Villas-Boas seemed pleased enough after the match.
“I’m extremely pleased, especially when you consider that Liverpool are a week ahead of us in their preparations and physically, that means a lot,” AVB said.
“From the first minute we managed to press them, create problems, recover balls, stay defensively compact and that signifies an improvement from what we did against LA Galaxy.
“This is the commitment that you want. In the end, every team that goes through pre-season is trying to build for the first game, physically and in a certain style of play.
Spurs now prepare for the game with New York Red Bulls tomorrow before taking on Watford at Vicarage Road this Sunday.
Lessons learned –
* JJ & Bassong must never, ever play for Spurs again.
* We need 2 strikers, at least one should be top quality.
* Kane doesn’t fill one of those slots yet.
* THudd is the only player capable of running midfield and his injury problems mean we need another top midfielder.
* Red Skull can’t sweep up at the back, we need a first team keeper.
* Townsend deserves a few games in the first team this season.
* Gylfi is wasted without quality around him.
* Sandor, Jake and Scotty P owe Charlie Adam a few cheap shots.
Agree about the Charlie Adam comment. Let’s give these ”oh, well. Bale is a diver, cheat, etc, anyway, plus how dare he be ruled out for the Olympic team!!!” Liverpool supporters a taste of their own medicine.
*Use Vertonghen as the alternative leftback instead of Bassong, with Caulker/Dawson/Gallas acting as alternative centre-backs. Our central midfield is the most crowded area of the pitch, JJ isn’t needed….
*Purchase Llorente, Damiao or Remy. If we’re clever, we could get Benzema in exchange of Modric and a bit of money, then we would have one of the best strikers in the world who would very much fit into our style of play. Defoe is always a good sub to have, and we could get a sub-par striker like Saha as a reserve and even use Van der Vaart or Sig as a centre-forward on occasion as Spain did in the Euro with Fabregas.
*Been a while since I’ve seen Huddlestone play, but in the match I remembered just why he is so good…. He may be a static slow moving tower of a player, but by god he can pass and orchestrate the game. He could make a very good Pirlo. Obviously we need someone else though, so sell Modric and end that whole saga and get Moutinho, underrated even with all the praise he gets. Moutinho was in the Zonal Marking Euro starting XI (http://www.zonalmarking.net/2012/07/04/zms-team-of-euro-2012/) and is a ridiculously good player who gets along fantastically well with AVB.
*Finish the whole Lloris deal before he puts in another fantastic season and it’s too late for us to catch him….
*Townsend certainly showed his quality, what ball control and dribbling skills! Maybe a Lennon in the making? Just not quite as much speed….
*Gylfi with the team running as AVB commands and with a the deep lying playmaker (Moutinho) and destroyer (Parker/Sandro) that are staple positions of AVB’s 4-3-3, would really be a sight to see. We’d do better tika-taka than Swansea!
*Charlie Adam is a disgrace of a player and should get suitable punishment from the FA back here in the UK.
PS: Berbatov is also a striker AVB should be targeting, even as a sub. We could get him for a measely £5m, and he’d be great for us.
Although beating LA Galaxy and Liverpool would obviously look better, I think it’s been a fairly decent pre-season. Players like Naughton, Livermore, Townsend, Carroll and Kane have all shown glimpses of how good they could be, plus we’ve seen several fringe players put in fairly suffice performances. By the time we travel to Valencia, I’d expect the keeper, central midfield and striking positions to be occupied with new signings.
I was at the game and honestly it was simply too bloody hot for decent football. I had to get up twice during the game to stand in the shade for a few minutes. I understand that that these are professional players but i don’t think that avb told them to give it all against the chicken livers.
Very fair point although I think we can take something from the gulf in class between the likes of Hudd and all our other centre mids. We need a ball player to orchestrate the attacking play.
Yes we need a ball player but hudd is not the man to fill modrics place, sorry hudd but we need a like for like replacement. We have a good squad but we need 2 world class players to take us to the next level. A top cm and a top forward. And people stop drawing comparisons between Pirlo and hudd for gods sake. They are not in any way similar and it’s embarrassing to read spurs fans are thinking like this.
In terms of quality, of course they are not at all similar. Pirlo is a legend. But in the way they play, acting as a deep lying slow moving playmaker that orchestrates the game from behind and is confident in sending diagonal long passes, they are very similar.